


a hallowed doorway

by the_ragnarok



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Creepy Fluff, Extremely Dubious Consent, Human/Monster Romance, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mpreg, Other, Spider Gag, Xenophilia, no spiders are harmed in this story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:40:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22048774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_ragnarok/pseuds/the_ragnarok
Summary: Martin cuts a deal with the web during Jon's coma. The results are... more to his liking than he would have thought.
Relationships: martin blackwood/spider
Comments: 12
Kudos: 109





	a hallowed doorway

**Author's Note:**

> More on the consent nature of this story in the end notes

Annabelle raises Martin's face towards her with two fingers under his chin. He's taller than her, but he's knelt at her feet. He's not sure how he arrived at this position.

"While normally, assuaging your fears would be the opposite of what I want," Annabelle says, "I have something to gain by making you feel secure. So I'll make you a promise: none of us will harm your Archivist. None of us will harm you, while you're in our service." She smiles. "But that's much less of a concern for you, isn't it?"

Martin shrugs. It's nice, not having to fake caring about his own wellbeing. "How can I trust a promise you make?"

Her smile widens. "I could make you trust it. But I don't see a reason. Look at your cards, Martin; either you bet on us, or you lose. I don't need to change your mind for you when the circumstances have played so nicely into my hands." She clicks her tongue, and something dangles down from the ceiling on a strand of web. A book. Martin can take a guess at what its bookplate says. "We're going to call a friend for you, and he'll serve as protection for you as well."

Martin's eyebrows rise. "I'm not actually five, Ms. Cane."

She runs her fingers through her hair. They're long and cool, and he shivers at the touch of fingernails to his scalp. "Of course you're not." Her tone is cloying. "Why don't you take a look at the book?"

Whatever else is true, Annabelle is right that this is his last available option. He opens the book.

~

Martin does not remember arriving back at his flat, but there he is all the same. He has the book in his hands. He furtively scans his clothing but can see no spiders that took residence there. "So much for her _friend_." He makes his way inside, makes himself some tea. It's a perfectly nondescript evening.

The night is more... unusual.

Martin wakes up when a weight falls on the bed. He startles. Light from a passing car shines and illuminates eight gleaming eyes and large mandibles, all set in a coarsely furred face.

Martin forces his breath to be deep and even. This must be that friend that Annabelle mentioned. If it's going to kill him, then it is, and Martin can't change that. If he's not afraid, at least he won't feed the fear entity that sent it.

The light shines again. The visitor is definitely a giant spider, man-sized. It climbs all the way on the bed and curls up by Martin's side.

"Oh," Martin says, and reaches gingerly to pet it. The spider does not bite his hand. The fur is as coarse as it looks, but it's not unpleasant under Martin's fingers. The spider clicks its mandibles in a way that Martin chooses to interpret as friendly.

"Hello," Martin whispers to it. A hairy, chitinous leg comes to -- paw? That can't be the right word -- at Martin's stomach. "Oh! Hello, yes. That's me."

The spider seems content to touch Martin, even as Martin turns his back, falling asleep to the feeling of his back being touched in a light, repetitive manner.

~

Another gift from Annabelle arrives by delivery - or rather, by a man who seemed very confused once Martin took it from him and retreated, stammering, when Martin asked if he needed to sign anywhere. In the box there is something that looks like a collar, with a ring set in its middle. There are blunt spikes extending from the side of the ring.

There is also a note. "Bear in mind that your new friend will see this gag as an invitation." Great, more bloody riddles, just what Martin wanted.

He's not expecting for the little spikes to start moving. The... gag? Really? It looks quite uncomfortable -- skitters up his arm, shoulder, neck. Martin bats it down firmly before it can lodge itself in his mouth and shuts it in a drawer.

Before going to bed, though, he opens the drawer. He is still, perhaps, just enough of the Eye's servant to want to know what will happen.

The gag walks up to Martin's mouth almost shyly this time, like it's apologizing for his earlier rudeness. Martin really needs some actual human connections so he'll stop anthropomorphizing artefacts sent by eldritch horrors. In the meantime, though, he lets the gag settle in his mouth. It's not uncomfortable at all, actually, the straps in the back are the exact size to keep it in place, the spikes move so as to support his open jaw rather than poke it.

Martin has not named his spider friend. It feels presumptuous to do. Perhaps it has a name, and hasn't told Martin about it? Martin supposes it doesn't matter, since he doesn't have more than one spider friend. He doesn't need to differentiate him from all his other spider friends or, come to think about it, from his nonexistent human friends.

For the last few nights, the spider came into his bed during the night. Martin woke up briefly and went back to sleep. It was nice, not to be alone in his bed.

Tonight, he wakes up to see a white, pulsating abdomen above him, and at its edge something elongated, the tip dripping clear liquid. Martin considers his pried-open mouth and for a moment his one thought is _Oh, shite_.

But then, for long minutes, nothing happens. The spider is just stood there, waiting above Martin, for... what? Permission? Martin can't speak anyway, the gag is pressing down on his tongue.

 _Go ahead,_ Martin thinks. He might as well get to the point of this.

To Martin's slight surprise, the spider moves. To his larger surprise, the elongated thing does not immediately shove itself down his throat. The spider rests it on Martin's lip, and there is sweetness in Martin's mouth. Martin hums, unthinking, and the thing comes in until it's occupying as much of his mouth as possible while still letting him breathe.

Martin doesn't quite mean to suck. It's just -- well, seems like the thing to do when someone puts their part in your mouth. And it's calming, calming enough that Martin would be sure this is the Web's doing if he didn't embarrassingly recall that no, he's just like that when sucking on something. Oral fixation or whatnot.

The spider's two front legs card through Martin's hair, a familiar sensation by now. The spider clicks contentedly as Martin sucks. Eventually, it withdraws its... part... from Martin's mouth. If the spider had climaxed, Martin had missed it.

Of course, it's a spider. Who knows if it even does that.

~

Martin may as well look at the actual book Annabelle gave him. It's the best source of information he's got.

If Martin were expecting some kind of ancient tome, he'd be disappointed. It's a hard-cover, cloth bound erotic novel. The heroine falls in love with a man with a monstrous secret: he turns into a giant, man-sized spider at night.

The man-spider is named James, which Martin supposes might well be the name of his own spider. The descriptions certainly match. No cursed gags appear in the books, but halfway through the book the heroine goes to sleep naked, and the spider comes to ravish her. She then becomes pregnant, and the book ends with him resting a warm hand over her swollen belly, lumpen with eggs.

Well. That seems like a fairly straightforward explanation of what the Web wants from him, he thinks.

Sucking the spider's part has become routine. Martin doesn't want to go against his agreement with the Web and it's not too bad, honestly. Relaxing, in a very odd way. James isn't disgusting or scary to Martin; not particularly attractive, either, but he's had sex for worse reasons and came away fine.

That night before bed, Martin prepares himself, blushing, and goes to sleep sans clothes, lying face down. He wakes up to a familiar, hairy weight on top of him. "Waiting for permission?" Martin says muzzily. "Fine, go ahead." He tilts himself arse up in invitation.

When James fucks him, it has four of its arms surrounding Martin in the closest thing to a hug he'd had in years. Martin can feel a round bulge sliding down James' part, and another one, and another one, a kind of stimulation he's never had before. He's hard before he knows it, reaching down mindlessly to grab his cock.

Eventually the bulges stop coming, but James stays inside Martin until Martin comes. Martin falls asleep with James' arms still around him.

~

Martin's never been thin, exactly, but in two weeks the swell of his stomach is undeniable, his trousers refusing to close around his waist.

James has, for once, stuck around in the morning. "What do I do?" Martin asks it, gesturing at his defiant trousers. "I can't go outside like this."

James stands up and opens the door of Martin's shabby closet with a foreleg. It pulls out something large and shapeless - a housedress that belonged to Martin's mother, patterned with fading floral print. "You had better be kidding me," Martin says.

James does the spider equivalent of a shrug and settles on top of Martin's bed. 

Martin stares at the closet. Then a giggle comes out of him, chased by another one, until he's on the floor, uncertain whether he's laughing or crying. He feels James' forelegs touching his back, tentative. "I'm fine," Martin says, wiping his eyes. "Just hit me how ridiculous this all is. Sure, I'll let the spider monster impregnate me-- no offense," he hastens to add. James clicks in a way that Martin chooses to interpret as 'none taken'. "But now I'm pitching a fit about wearing my mum's old clothes? Really?"

James keeps rubbing his back. Martin sighs. "Will you come here?" He holds his arms out.

Hugging a giant spider is awkward. The position doesn't really work, and Martin worries that it's uncomfortable for James. Still, James shows no sign of complaint until Martin lets go.

The housedress is loose on him. "Any chance you know how big I'll be getting?" Martin asks James, who gives him another spider-shrug. "Fantastic." He is running short on groceries, though, and his budget doesn't extend to getting anything delivered. 

Besides, the notion of being stuck inside his flat again does not appeal. So Martin goes.

It occurs to him people might whisper, but nobody's paid attention to him yet. Makes him hopeful for humanity, actually. Maybe with the new millenium nobody minds who wears what anymore. 

Then he feels a hand on his stomach, and a woman in her forties stands too close for comfort and asks, "How far along are you?"

Martin looks at her, considers that he did shave this morning but hasn't cut his hair in a while. People might make assumptions, he supposes, and the woman isn't even wrong. "Er--" his voice, not that deep in the first place, goes a pitch higher in panic.

The woman chuckles and rubs his belly. Why is she still touching him? "Nothing to be alarmed about," she says. "This is all perfectly natural."

"It really isn't," Martin says faintly, and a blue light shines up from his stomach. He looks down to see that the dress and the top of his stomach have both gone transparent, and underneath them he can see translucent eggs with tiny, half-formed spiders in them.

"Oh," Martin breathes. "Babies!" This pregnancy has never seemed quite so real to him yet. 

The woman snatches her hand off as if burned. She takes a step back, two, and then runs away.

"Well," Martin says, rubbing his belly, watching his babies tumble around one another peacefully. "Some people really need to mind their own business."

~

He doesn't go to Jon's bedside anymore. Can't take the possibility of Jon waking up and being terrified of him and what he's carrying; can't take the reality of Jon not waking up at all.

~

James stays in the daytime more and more often. Caressing Martin's stomach, weaving him little blankets to keep him warm on the couch. "Don't bring me any flies for a snack," Martin tells him, joking.

Instead, James brings him a picnic basket.

Martin claps his hands over his mouth. Muffled, he says, "Where did you--" he drops his hands. "I don't want to know, do I?"

After a moment of hesitation, he spreads one of James' handmade - mouthmade? Selfmade, any rate - blankets on the floor and brings plates. If the worst misfortune he's party to because of this alliance is stealing someone's lunch, he can live with that.

He hesitates before putting down James' plate. "Will you eat with me? Uh, click once for yes, twice for no." James clicks, and clicks again. Martin tries not to deflate. "Oh."

But James sits next to the plate readily enough, and Martin sits on his own side, and it feels very cosy to share a meal like that. Even if James won't eat, himself.

That evening, James walks up to the front door and raps on it, turning to Martin expectantly. "Can't you let yourself out? You do usually." Martin's feet hurt, and he doesn't particularly want to get up.

James raps again. Martin sighs and goes to open the door. James takes two steps outside and waves to Martin. "Yes, goodbye," Martin says, and waves back. James waves again, more insistent, and Martin twigs. "Oh! You want me to come along?"

Very pointedly, James clicks. Martin grabs his coat, puts on his shoes and follows him out. 

James leads them a few blocks away, then stands at the entryway to a building. "I can't open that for you, sorry," Martin tells him. "Don't have the code."

James makes no comment. The two of them wait there for a few more minutes until somebody opens the door, and James follows him in. Martin comes after him. They take a lift up three floors and follow the man who opened the door into a flat.

On entering, the man seems to wake up from some kind of fugue state. He seems more alert, and he scans the living room, muttering, "Where are you, you little monsters?" Martin stands in the corner, frozen.

The man pauses, and reaches down, lightning quick, to pick up a small, limp form. The form resolves itself into that of a small child. Martin feels queasy. James puts a quelling forearm on him. The man snarls, "Got you, you little--"

James walks two steps out of their corner and makes a polite clicking noise. The man freezes. He lowers the child back to the ground. As James approaches, the man stands motionless except for a violent trembling. 

When James is right in front of him, the man lies down with jerky motions. James climbs over him; for a moment, Martin thinks James might rape the man. But James' part is nowhere to be seen, which Martin feels conflictedly relieved about. He wouldn't have wanted the kid to see that, for one thing. 

The kid. Martin scrambles out of the shadows to go to her, skirting the place where the man - her father - is crying with fear, James on top of him. He kneels a distance away from her, close enough to be heard whispering, far enough that he hopes he won't alarm her. "Are you alright?" is what comes out of his mouth, and he is ashamed. Of course she isn't. She shrugs in reply. "The spider won't hurt you." He better not. Or Martin will-- he will-- he'll come up with something. 

The kid rolls her eyes. "Duh," she says. She's shaking, though. 

"He probably will hurt... is that your dad?"

"Yeah," the kid says. After a hesitation, she says fiercely, "Good."

The man thrashes once, twice, and subsides. Martin doesn't look to see exactly what's going on. Instead he asks the kid, "What's your name?"

"Sasha."

Against his will, Martin shivers. "I knew a Sasha once. I suppose it's a common name. I'm Martin." He offers his hand to shake. "Can you use the phone, Sasha?"

"Duh," she says again, rolling her eyes this time. 

"I, I'll give you my number, okay? And if your dad gives you any more trouble, call, and James and I - that's James over there," he indicates, "will come right over. Okay?"

Sasha doesn't look like she believes him, but she takes his number, which he scribbles on a receipt he finds in his bag. 

Soon, he feels the familiar touch of a foreleg to his back. He turns to James. "Time to go, then?" James clicks once. "All right. Take care, Sasha - please, call me if anything's wrong, okay?"

As they walk home, Martin tries to make the evening fit into his mind. "What was that?" he finally asks James, who clicks and chitters. It's only when Martin settles into bed when he realizes: "Oh. I shared a meal with you, so you wanted to share a meal with me."

James clicks once, pleased. 

That night, Martin takes his clothes off and prepares himself. He's not hard, nowhere near that. He just wants to feel closeness. 

James climbs on the bed, gently pushing Martin until Martin is positioned on hands and knees. James comes up behind him and hugs him, strong, for a long time. Eventually he penetrates Martin, but doesn't move. They stay still, connected, until Martin is too tired to maintain the position and James helps him lie down and pets him until he's asleep. 

~

Martin wakes up still naked, and his knees are hanging from loops of web that attach to the ceiling, his legs spread open. "What's this?" he says, groggy. Then he notices the pressure inside him.

James is beside him. "What is it?" Martin asks him. "Is it time?" James clicks. "Oh."

He's still open from the night before. It's a stretch, a painful one, but not impossible. Unlike so many painful experiences in Martin's life, in this he is hurting to make a new life, a hundred new lives. It's more than worth it. 

Martin strains. He pulls at the sheets until they come loose, and then James puts more web loops into his hands, for him to pull on. He gasps for breath in between flashes of pain. The eggs come out, and come out, and come out. Distantly, he sees James move the eggs to the floor, notices one or two palm-sized spiders skittering out of the room.  
  
Finally, Martin is worn out, unable to move. James pushes a foreleg inside him and scoops out two remaining eggs, making Martin whimper and twitch. He's too out of it to do anything more.

The next thing he knows, there is a tea tray next to his pillow. The web loops are replaced by blankets, made of both web and fabric. Next to the tray are three small spiders (well, compared to James), shiny-new. "Oh, hello," Martin says, weakly. "Did you make this for me?" The spiders click in unison. "You shouldn't have, you were just born." He tries the tea. It's not bad, considering it was brewed by beings with no opposable thumbs. 

"Do you have names?" he says, then shakes his head. "I suppose it's up to me to name you, isn't it?" James clicks once from the bottom of the bed, and the babies click as well. "All right: you three are," he points from left to right, "Joy, Aranea, and Nellie." He sighs. "I'll have to make you all name tags, I'm not sure-- oh," he says, when James holds up to him a bit of web in which the word JOY is readily apparent. "Oh." He may start tearing up, then. He chalks it up to labor hormones.

~~

The babies climb onto him, nestle into his hair. Martin is concerned about accidentally crushing them in his sleep, until James fashions a web to hold Martin securely in place. The babies swarm onto him afterwards, and Martin wishes he had more arms to hold them all. 

Something comes out of his skin then: not more arms, but coarse hairs, which the babies latch onto. Martin falls asleep in a sweet cocoon of those who love him.

~

By the time he receives a text from Melanie reading _Jon's awake!!_ , the spiderlings have grown to the size of dinner plates, and Martin's living room has been covered with web. "Oh dear," he says, looking around him.

Jon's message comes next. _Everyone says they haven't seen you in months. If you don't show up today, I'm coming to your flat._

Right. Of course. That makes sense, given the last time Martin had a prolonged absence. He sucks in a breath and looks down at himself. He's naked except for his lap, where he's covered in a web blanket, his babies climbing all over him. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to stay home, would you?" he asks, not holding out much hope.

As he'd suspected, when he gets up, the spiderlings trail after him. Brienne, who was climbing his shoulder, becomes dislodged by the movement and tumbles to the floor. It doesn't hurt her, but it dismays Martin enough to stand in place.

James comes out then, holding a webby mess of straps. It takes Martin a moment to realize what he's carrying. "Oh," Martin says then, overcome with warmth. He gently lowers away the spiders clinging to his upper body, and goes to get dressed.

They get their own car on the subway - everyone else clears right out. Martin supposes he's quite a sight, with the babies' little legs twitching out of the web carrier. James helps round up the more curious young ones, who are liable to wedge themselves into any crack they find; fortunately the three eldest - Joy, Aranea and Nellie - help him, going after their smaller siblings whenever they go somewhere too narrow for James to follow. 

The institute seems abandoned when Martin gets there. It is coming on five. It makes his way to the archives easier. The door to Jon's office is shut, so Martin knocks. "Come in," sounds about half a minute later; despite himself, Martin's heart quickens to hear Jon's voice. 

He takes a breath to steel himself before coming in, and then it comes out in a yelp of, "Don't hurt them!" 

Jon's first response to the sight of him is to leap on the table and brandish a shoe. James hisses at him; from the carrier, so do the elder babies, a higher sound.

"Martin," Jon says, wide-eyed. "What the _fuck_." His eyes narrow. "Are you Martin at all?"

That was hurtful, but Martin supposes it made sense enough. "I cut a deal," he says, flat. "To keep the archives staff safe. I'm not expecting you to like them," he gestures at James and the babies, "and I suspect I will work from home for the time being, but we're a package deal now."

Jon stares at Elle, who has climbed on Martin's shoulder to wave her tiny forelegs aggressively at Jon. "Does it have a name tag?"

"Yes, she does," Martin says, pointed. He knows Jon is scared and he feels bad about it, really he does, but he also feels his babies getting stronger from the fear. And honestly, if Jon wants to be unreasonable, why shouldn't his babies benefit?

"This isn't right." Jon shakes his head. "Christ, Martin, what did they do to you?" The next moment his face drains of color completely. "Oh no. No."

"Figured it out, did you?" Martin says, unimpressed. "I'm sorry if my private life freaks you out, Jon, but it is my private life."

"You." Jon points at him, then at James. He sounds strangled. "Him."

"Yes, well done." Martin sighs. "Well, now you should know I'm not held hostage by worms. No need to come by my flat, it'll only make you feel worse. Babies!" He clicks his tongue. "We're going. Don't stay here, he will smoosh you." He glares at Jon. 

"This is worse," he hears Jon says on his way out. He pretends he didn't hear it.

~

That night, James comes to bed and presses against Martin so that Martin can feel his swollen part. "Oh!" Martin says. "Oh, why not, we may as well."

He's not very surprised to feel the eggs sliding into him. His main concern, when it's over and James is petting his belly, is, "How am I going to find enough names?"

James chitters. Martin says. "I suppose it'll work out, yes." He falls asleep with James' foreleg caressing his belly.

**Author's Note:**

> Consent notes:  
> \- The beginning features some kneeling and petting of dubious consent.  
> \- Martin goes to the Web under duress and accepts a deal with them without knowing what it entails  
> \- Martin has sex with a spider monster, is somewhere between resigned and okay with it  
> \- Martin is impregnated with spider monster babies, he is very happy about this outcome


End file.
